Perhaps a win isn’t a win after all.
Athlete Joanna Wietrzyk has conceded that she should have called it quits after losing control of her bowels during a Hyrox competition last week — a decision that drew fierce backlash as she powered through the race to claim first place.
“I want to offer my sincere apology to the people of China, my fellow competitors, the spectators and the HYROX organizers for what happened during the race in Beijing,” Wietrzyk wrote in a statement posted to her Instagram Thursday.
The mea culpa marks a sharp turn from Wietrzyk’s initial reaction to the messy mishap, which saw her running, rowing and lunging through the competition as diarrhea streamed down her legs.
“Go hard or go home they say … a win is a win,” she declared on social media before deleting the post as outrage mounted over her decision to stay in the indoor fitness competition.
The fallout also put Hyrox officials under scrutiny for allowing the event to continue despite what some described as a public safety hazard.
“I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race, with no reason to expect any illness,” Wietrzyk wrote in her new statement. “Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognize that I should have made a different choice.”
Social media users and fellow athletes complained that other competitors were left navigating a dangerous, slippery track — and potentially a biohazard — after fecal matter ended up smeared across shared equipment.
Photos and video from the remainder of the race showed feces covering Wietrzyk’s legs as she powered through another run, a seated row, a farmer’s carry, a sandbag lunge and wall ball exercises.
“I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused,” she wrote. “I know my actions had an impact beyond myself, and I am genuinely sorry to everyone who was affected.”
Chinese officials said staff swiftly cordoned off the affected areas, disinfected the site through the end of the day, removed contaminated equipment and arranged to replace the carpet once the event was over, according to the South China Morning Post.
Still, participants and spectators said the cleanup did not happen quickly enough, with reports of fecal matter smeared across equipment and the track.
And somehow, through all the chaos, Wietrzyk still took the top spot. She finished the indoor fitness competition in 1 hour, 1 minute and 23 seconds — but now concedes that she should have hung up her diarrhea-splattered sneakers.
“I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away,” Wietrzyk wrote.
“On reflection, I have decided to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned.”
Wietrzyk, who received fierce online hate, harassment and death threats over the incident, went on to thank those who stood by her and offered kindness amid the fallout.
“It means more to me than I can properly express right now,” she said. “I will be taking some time to recover, reflect and look after myself and my family away from the noise.”
Her statement came days after her coach, Chris Bayens, spoke out about the online abuse his star student has faced over her decision to remain in the competition.
Bayens described what unfolded as “an extraordinary set of circumstances that were unforeseen, rapidly evolving and almost impossible to fully comprehend in real time.”
Pointing to the decision by the organization during the competition to allow the world record holder to continue, Bayens argued that hindsight has a way of making split-second decisions look far simpler than they were.
“It is very easy to construct the perfect response once the moment has passed. Those decisions can be reviewed and lessons can be taken from them,” he wrote on Instagram.
But his biggest objection was reserved for the “hatred” directed at Wietrzyk, which he called “ugly.”
“Judging someone’s intent, character or morality through the clarity of hindsight is neither fair nor honest,” he said. “Discussion is legitimate. The hatred and personal attacks that followed are not.”
For its part, Hyrox took several days to address the smelly situation, eventually issuing a statement about the “increasingly complex situations” arising at its competitions.
“We ask our athletes to push themselves to the highest levels. At times, they will go beyond what even we thought was possible,” they wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post. “That courage, resilience and refusal to give in are precisely what makes elite athletes so extraordinary.”
The athletic brand’s co-founder, Moritz Fürste, later issued his own statement, apologizing “to all that were directly or indirectly affected, as well as to everyone who felt like we did not handle the situation like we should have.”
“HYROX made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,” he wrote. “In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents — and I did not.”
Fürste said Hyrox has since changed its rules and procedures as a result of the incident.
“As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again,” he said.
